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The Discovery -Ism Project

Introduction

I want you to know who you are, completely. I want you to be able to
stand up to people who disagree with you, and I want you to know that
you are right. I want you to enter high school with an absolute
confidence that no one will be able tear down or cut through. More than
anything else, I want your voice to be clear as crystal when you say,
“I am me.”

I suppose that these are rather lofty goals, but I don’t believe that
they are unattainable. Some of you may think that you already possess
such traits: confidence, infinite knowledge of self, and well-defined
principles. I don’t doubt that some of you have thought long and hard
about who you are. It seems almost natural, an effortless trait that
comes along with being identified Gifted and Talented. I wonder, in an
ironic way, if you could be so simple-minded and devoid of personality
that you find yourself with no other conclusions to come to or with no
more beliefs left untested. Do you know yourself so well that your –ism
is already followed as a universal life plan incapable of being
refuted? If so, my apologies for having to go through this monotonous
exercise of definition. I bow to your superior powers of life
experience and self-knowledge.

Others of you may believe that all of your personality and life-long
aspirations will just take care of themselves as time goes by. I say to
you naysayers what Socrates said to a jury in Athens around 2400 years
ago, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” In defending his life
from the charges of heresy and sedition, Socrates told his peers that
he would rather die than not think for himself and know himself. He
said that if he could not do these things, the world around him was
unknowable and not worth being a part of. At the very least, we should
pay homage to this act of courage. This project will help you to decide
which beliefs you hold so dear that you would die for them (or at least
fight to keep them).

Now, lets figure out how you can live up to such a legacy.

The Task:

Students will create their belief structure by completing a series of activities that are meant to reveal over time the different aspects of their beliefs. The activities are all outlined on the template page, but for specific reference, here are the requirements for this project:

You
can answer them in any format you wish (podcast, text, powerpoint,
standpoint belief statements, etc.), so long as the answers are clear
and well labeled. In fact, your page is mostly just a place to collect all of your learning objects rather than a place to write your ideas.

They will link to one another, creating a web of ideas.

At least three links to others' belief structures (Thus commenting on these other belief structures).

They will add pages explaining their thoughts, further expanding the wiki and beliefs.

You can organize your -Ism in any way, so long as you have all of the requirements fleshed out.

The students will use their Idopia accounts in order to debate their ideas and the history tab to see the evolution of their ideas.